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A. D. Lord, and M. D. Leggett the association would have undertaken almost any enterprise.

The financial enterprises undertaken by the association with so much confidence and enthusiasm proved a heavy burden, and at the annual meeting in 1859 both the Journal of Education and the McNeely Normal School were wisely transferred to private control. The indebtedness of the association was not fully paid until 1862. The great educational awakening which began in 1815 and in its progress organzed the State Teachers' Association, put Lorin Andrews in the field as a common bool missionary, started the Ohio Journal of Education, and founded the McNeely Normal School, culminated in the enactment of the general school law of 1853. The aw embodied several of the important measures which Mr. Andrews, Mr. Galloway, and others had advocated, and there was much rejoicing over its enactment.

It is thus seen that the decade of 1845 to 1855 was a period of great importance in the history of public education in Ohio. No decade before or since has been characterized by such enthusiastic movement in the interest of public schools. It was a decade of zeal and action.

The next decade (1855-1865) opened with the inauguration of the new school law. Every progressive feature was opposed in the general assembly, and it looked for a time as if the great measure would be destroyed by ill-considered amendments. The school directors in the subdistricts (formerly separate districts) did not take kindly to the sharing of the management of the schools with the new township board of education. It kept the first commissioner's pen busy in answering the questions arising ander the provisions of the law relating to townships, and he soon found it necessary to publish from month to month a series of "official opinions"-a practice continued br years. The law was fortunately protected from serious changes, the repeal of the school library section in 1860 excepted. The opening of the civil war, with the sudden prostration of business, invited harmful legislation, but the most unfavorable amendment was the reduction of the State school tax to 1.3 mills.

The several amendments to the school law in 1861, all prepared by the school commissioner, were designed to lessen friction in the administration of the law and otherwise increase its officiency. The three new provisions which were added have exerted a wide and salutary influence upon the schools. The first of these provided a fund for the support of teachers' institutes, the second created a State board of examiners, and the third added a knowledge of the theory and practice of teaching to the requirements for a teacher's certificate. The fact that these several proVisions, with slight modifications, are still in force is evidence of their practical Vile. No other agency prior to 1855 did as much for the professional advancement of Ohio teachers as the teachers' institute, and no other agency did more to awaken and direct popular interest in school progress. The two teachers' institutes held in | 1845 multiplied from year to year until 1855, when forty-one institutes were held, with an attendance of some 4,000 teachers. Until 1864 the expenses of the institates held were, as a rule, paid by those in attendance. Since 1864 the county stitute fund has been sufficient to permit the holding of an annual institute, with competent instructors, in four-fifths of the counties, and in the other counties only a small additional tuition fee is required. It seems unnecessary to refer more at ngth to what the other two provisions have done for the improvement of teachers. The school legislation of 1864 was a long step forward in school progress. The next year the general assembly opened the way for the adoption of an adequate ystem of normal training for the teachers of the State, but owing to divided counels in the profession in 1866 the long-coveted opportunity was permitted to pass improved and it has never returned. The establishment of a normal department in the Ohio University at Athens, and recently in the Ohio State University at Coinmbus, is a somewhat hopeful indication that the preparation of teachers for their great work may yet receive long-needed legislative action. The leading cities of the State have all established normal or training schools for the fitting of their teachers, more especially for the elementary grades, but the teachers in the country schools are still left to the professional crumbs afforded by the teachers' institute and the inadequate normal advantages provided by private enterprise. Ohio is still A good way from the full recognition of the fact that teaching is a pursuit that should be entered through the door of special training.

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The only important school legislation secured in the next decade (1865-1875) was the complete codification of school law in 1873. While this law did not contain very important new provisions it simplified the law of 1853, with its numerous amendments, and thus rendered the administration of school affairs more certain and effective. The divorcement of boards of education in cities of the first class from the municipal legislation of such cities was an important measure. The giving of all boards of education, including township boards, permissive power to employ a superintendent of schools was an important amendment, but the townships, with very few exceptions, permitted it to remain a dead letter.

During this decade repeated and earnest efforts were made to secure county super

vision of schools and the adoption of the township system. But a strong opposition to these measures appeared in each general assembly, and the bills prepared by the successive commissioners and introduced were defeated. The commissioners in turn advocated the establishment of normal schools, but no well-digested bill was prepared or introduced into the general assembly, and no earnest effort was made to secure needed legislation.

The centennial year found Ohio without a State normal school, without a system of supervision of the schools outside of its cities, and still blindly clinging to its complicated, inefficient township-subdistrict organization in all its counties. Instead of taking its place in the front rank of the States noted for progressive school legislation, where its early history had placed it, the educators of Ohio were humiliated by the fact that in such legislation their State was near the rear. The educational honor of the State was saved only by the splendid showing of the schools in its cities and towns.

The next decade (1875-1885) brought a renewal of earnest efforts to secure advanced school legislation, but without success. The most important amendments to the school law related to teachers' certificates. Section 4066 was so amended in 1881 as to give the State board of examiners power to issue professional certificates of a second grade, valid for ten years-a provision of doubtful utility, which was soon repealed. By the same act section 4081 was so amended as to give boards of examiners in cities power to grant certificates for one, two, three, five, and ten years, those issued for five and ten years being renewable without reexamination, at the discretion of the board of examiners, a certificate of higher professional grade than the nonrenewable ten year certificate issued by the State board of examiners.

The only general school legislation of special significance in the first five years of the next decade (1885-1895) was the so-called "temperance law" of 1888, a law enjoining instruction on the nature and effects of alcoholic drinks and narcotics in all grades of schools.

The most important amendment to the school law enacted in these five years related to teachers' certificates. Commissioner Tappan secured, in 1888, a fuller recognition of teaching as a profession by placing a professional certificate within the easy reach of every well-qualified teacher in the State. The State board of examiners were authorized to issue three grades of life certificates (the authority to issue ten-year certificates being revoked), and all other boards of examiners (county and city) were authorized to issue, under specified conditions, certificates valid for five years, renewable without reexamination at the discretion of the examiners. Thus provision was made for two classes of professional certificates-one valid for life, issued by the State board, and the other for five years, renewable without reexamination, issued by county and city boards. This five-year renewable certificate was intended to be a professional certificate, and it is to be regretted that it is not so designated in the law. Every teacher holding this certificate should be recognized as a teacher of professional standing, and should be honored as such. There ought to be a score or inore of such teachers in every county.

It is feared that many county and city examiners have not used wisely either the power or the discretion conferred by this law. There seems to be a suspicion in the minds of too many examiners, if not a belief, that the only way to secure progress among teachers is to humiliate them by repeated examinations in the elementary branches. The only sure way to awaken and sustain a professional spirit among teachers is to honor it both by law and in practice. The history of legislation in Ohio regulating the examination and certification of teachers is a dreary history evidently "to be continued."

The beneficent laws so far enacted in this closing decade of the nineteenth cen tury mark a greater advance in school legislation than the entire third of a century that preceded it. Among these important acts relating to schools enacted in and since 1890 are (1) the so-called "Workman law," which makes the township, like the city and town, the unit in school administration-the most fruitful school legislation since 1853; (2) the "Boxwell law," providing for the graduation of the pupils in rural schools and their admission to near city or town high schools; (3) the law "to compel the elementary education of children" as strengthened and perfected in 1893 (4) the law of 1894 giving women the right to vote and be voted for at election o school officers; and (5) the schoolbook law, with its option of free text-books.

These several laws are too recent to be treated intelligently as history. No one of them has met with such persistent and unreasonable opposition as the "Work man law." In each of the two general assemblies succeeding its enactment a vigor ous effort was made to abolish the township system and restore the township-subdistrict complication which had been the special weakness of the school system since 1853; but the failure of these efforts is an assurance that the new township system may be permitted to work out its beneficent results. Its repeal would be little less than a disaster to rural school improvement.

Two cases of special legislation for cities in this last decade deserve mention. In

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1887 the general assembly gave the superintendent of schools of Cincinnati the power to appoint all teachers by and with the consent of the board of education; the power to dismiss teachers without the board's action; and made the superintendent's approval necessary to the adoption of text-books. It also enacted that the members of the board should not as individuals or as local committees exercise supervisory authority over the schools. This was an unprecedented recognition of the authority and function of supervision.

In the reorganization of the public schools of Cleveland in 1892, the superintendent was authorized to appoint or remove teachers, and to exercise complete supervisory authority in all matters pertaining to instruction and discipline, the selection of text-books excepted. Many of the duties usually intrusted to the board of education, including the appointment of the superintendent, were devolved upon a school director, elected by the people.

The limits of this paper forbid any attempt to review the progress made in school administration, instruction, and discipline in the fifty years since this association was organized. On the introduction of graded schools into the cities and towns the perfection of the system as a mechanism largely absorbed attention. The "system" assumed often the importance of an end, and it was too often administered on the theory that the pupils existed for the system, not the system for the pupils. The absorbing fascination was uniformity-uniformity of studies, uniformity of progress, uniformity of results. Two resulting errors in the direction of mechanism possessed the schools. One of these was the fixed year interval between classes and the other the stated written examination to determine the promotion of pupils at the close of the year. These two features necessitated uniformity of progress not only by the individual pupils in every class, but by all the classes in each grade. This required uniform progress assumed that the several classes in a grade in city schools possess equal ability and are taught by teachers of equal skill-conditions that exist in no graded schools. It occurred often that classes that could have completed the course of study for the grade as early as April were kept "marking time "until the annual promotion in June.

For years the year interval between classes and the stated promotion examinations held the graded schools of cities in their grasp. They narrowed and grooved the instruction, encouraged and rewarded mechanical and memoriter methods, and emphasized all the lumber of the text-books. This antagonism between the mechanism of the graded system and rational methods of teaching was early felt by intelligent and progressive teachers, and for twenty years past praiseworthy efforts have been made to free the schools from this procrustean bondage. The reforms of the past twelve years are a promise that this sacrifice of the opportunity of pupils on the altar of uniformity and system will soon find a practical remedy.

The first hundred years of Ohio's history as a State will be but three years short when the nineteenth century closes. Is this century of marvelous progress to close with no State normal school in Ohio, and with the great majority of its rural schools without supervision? The two imperative needs of the rural school are professional training for its teachers and intelligent and efficient supervision. Is it not possible to see these two great measures of school improvement happily inaugurated before the State celebrates its first centennial?

OHIO SCHOOL REPORT.

Report for 1895, Hon. Oscar T. Corson, State commissioner.

The county schools on their new career of better organization and management are improving. It is admitted that there are many very poor schools in the subdistricts. Yet the increased public interest, evinced by investigation of the question of supervision promises betterment. Notwithstanding the opposition of many to the Workman law before referred to, among opponents are quite a number who favor supervision. Yet it is argued that this can be made practicable only by making the township the educational unit, and thus centering responsibility in the management of the system in one board of education. The existence of two such boards heretofore was always embarrassing from want of harmony and from divided responsibility. It is absolutey essential that both superintendent and teacher be elected by the same board.

The argument, still persisted in, that the Workman law has reduced salaries is again answered and confuted by statistics. While the commissioner writes that in some localities demagogues use for selfish ends their single power bestowed under the law, he contends that such things may exist under any laws, and that they certainly did exist under the old law, and that the remedy is to be found neither in enactments nor repeals of laws as much as in enhanced development of educational sentiment among the people. It is already felt in the greater stability and uniformity in the requirements made by the colleges upon the public schools, which

serve to overcrowd them more and more with studies that do not properly belong to them. Many of the small towns and villages have one high school and one teacher to do its work. Such as this can not fail of being ineffective, and the commission recommends that either their four years' course should be diminished or additional force assigned to the work. College authorities are those who can do most for remedy of such a state of things.

The effects of the law of compulsory education have been of great benefit to many hundreds of children of both sexes.

Very high praise is bestowed upon the Boys' Industrial School (correctional, though not penal, as well as educational) which it is evident has been managed with much judiciousness. Great good has been done during the forty years of its existence. This would have been far greater but for the insufficiency of appropriations. The following from the last report of the board of trustees is interesting; indeed, somewhat touching:

"We should like our schools as nearly uniform as possible with the public schools of the State, in order that pupils sent here for truancy might be continued in their regular classes, or that boys released from this school may enter the public schools in their regular classes. To do this properly would require the expenditure of money for the erection of a union school building and a large increase in the pay roll to enable us to employ experienced teachers. With a full knowledge of the State's financial condition, we can not hope to secure the necessary appropriations this year, but in order that a start may be made in the right direction, we have asked that our appropriation for salaries be increased, so that a good superintendent of schools and other necessary officers be employed, with the view of making the best use of our present opportunities."

In default of legislative action upon the subject the Stato board of examiners drew up a plan for a course in pedagogy, history of education, and science of education for the purpose of improving the quality of teachers, which, in its main features, has been adopted by a large number of the colleges, normal schools, and universities, and a course of pedagogy has been determined upon for the Ohio State University by its board of trustees.

Ohio has no State system of normal schools; yet in a very large number of cities and towns training of teachers forms a part of the higher schools' curricula.

Much benefit has resulted from the new text-books law, which, it is claimed, is as near perfect as could be made.

What appears to be the greatest need to education is an enhanced sentiment among the people at large in its favor. This would lead to more rapid improvement of teachers. Good teachers would be encouraged and be multiplied but for so much apparent indifference regarding discrimination between them and those far their inferior. Then such enhancement would lead to greater concern in the matter of school buildings, many of which, even in cities and towns, are without adequate accommodations, while in many of the subdistricts they are lamentably deficient in heating, lighting, ventilation, and other matters important to be well regulated.

1896.

The report for 1896 is also by Hon. Oscar T. Corson.

Attention is called to several amendments in the school law made by the last session of the legislature. First, that in addition to the branches in which teachers were required to be examined for certificates, history of the United States, including civil government, shall be included. It is not meant to require teaching of civil government in the common schools, except in connection with the history of the United States. A special committee, after bestowing much study upon the subject, submitted a report containing an "outline of civics." This carefully elaborated paper is copied into the commissioner's report. Another enactment requires all boards of education in the State to have displayed the national flag upon all schoolhouses under their control during all day sessions in fair weather, and on the inside on all days. This law, while regarded by some as needlessly expensive, has generally been accepted with cordiality.

Another change is the "eight-year certificate" allowed to be granted to applicants who, in addition to required qualifications, have held a certificate of five years, and been for three years next preceding their application engaged in teaching, with eighteen months' experience in one place, and undergone examination in botany, algebra, national philosophy, and English literature.

The Boxwell law has been so amended as to authorize each board of county examiners to determine the time and place of holding the examination and county commencement. This change will make still more effective this excellent law which is doing so much to encourage the proper organization of the country schools. In counties where the schools close early in the year, the examinations can be held at an earlier date, while those counties which are so fortunate as to have nine or ten months of school can be accommodated with examinations held at a later date.

"It will be an advantage to have the selection of the place for holding the county Commencement left to the county examiners. In some counties the county seat is not a suitable place to hold the commencement, and under the law as it now exists such a place can be selected as will accommodate the greatest number of persons interested, and at the same time bring about the best results in educating public sentiment for good schools."

The following summary of statistics shows the work accomplished by the law since it went into effect in 1892:

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Attention is again drawn to the bad management of funds by school boards. "In some instances the plainest provisions of the law have been violated, while in others Contracts involving the expenditure of money have been entered into without any authority whatever." One of the results of such criminally loose management must be either reductions in the salaries of teachers or shortening of school terms.

The last legislature passed an act intended to prevent the evils here complained of. The county school problem becomes more and more important and difficult of solution. In districts sparsely populated many schools have been disbanded and children carried from their homes to the leading center school at the expense of the State. Thus far this plan has proved quite practicable. Regarding one school of this sort particularly, that at Kingsville, in the county of Ashtabula, the report says: "The expense of schooling the children has thus been reduced nearly one-half, the daily attendance has been very largely increased, and the quality of the work greatly improved."

PENNSYLVANIA.

Report for 1896, Hon. Nathan C. Schaeffer, State superintendent.

Quite an elaborate report is that for the year 1896, in which, besides usual official returns, are discussions upon several matters appertaining to education and its various accidents. The superintendent speaks with pride of the continual munificent appropriations made by the State, that for last year being $5,500,000.

Under the head of Compulsory education" the superintendent shows that very much good has been done by legislation for the relief of children from the injurioue influences of too early and too burdensome work done in factories and mines. It was not until the year 1870 that under the census was ascertained the number thus employed in manufactures. This was 114,628, including both sexes, representing 5.58 per cent of all employees. This per cent decreased until 1890, when it became 2.57, the decrease being due mainly to legislative enactments.

The superintendent represents the occasional apparent clash of the law requiring Compulsory attendance with that requiring production of certificates of vaccination. There are cases where parents are opposed to vaccination and others where physitians decide that (in particular instances) it is not only not necessary but liable to hartful effects upon general health. Upon the child this conflict necessarily operates harmfully, whether in failing to secure him against an evil disease or obstructing his education. Directors of schools are sometimes embarrassed by the question, Shalì they prosecute for nonattendance in cases where the law itself forbids attendance? Another question arises, Shall vaccination be made compulsory? On the whole, hile the consensus of the most thoughtful opinion is in favor of the efficacy of it, yet it is also against having recourse to it when heads of families for any reason withhold their consent.

Some very apt observations are made upon the importance of cultivating taste, not only in the construction and decoration of schoolhouses, but in beautifying the grounds.

Under the head of "Extravagance" the superintendent says much that is both thoughtful and piquant. It has been found that the immense sums appropriated by the legislature for school purposes, like those in other business enterprises, individual and corporate, have not only to be economized, but jealously watched and guarded. Quite instructing are the following words:

"No sooner was our general school appropriation raised to five millions than the

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